


Sleeping World

by Ky_Bentley



Category: The Maze Runner (Movies)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Heavy Angst, Jorge gives good advice, M/M, Teresa is Thomas's anchor to the SW, Theory of Thermodynamics, Thomally is here and they're gonna stay, Thomas has nightmares, Vince is wise, trial and error, world building
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 08:54:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14951543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ky_Bentley/pseuds/Ky_Bentley
Summary: Paradise was never a place meant for Thomas because a part of him was left behind in the Last City when he lost Newt, letting him receive vivid nightmares. To confront his devils, he heads back to the ruins of Denver to see that it's standing tall. Unknowingly, Thomas entered his Sleeping World.





	Sleeping World

**Author's Note:**

> Trailer for story: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_hUcEmXMGOsOg5jEi4bWXqFKgqz9uDLM/view?usp=sharing

It was another day in Paradise _,_ but Thomas had a hard time with telling himself that, repeating it like a mantra in his head, knowing it’ll never stick because he didn’t have one person by his side. _Newt._ After all, it was his fault for why he died.

Long walks on the beach, the warm sea breeze, smiling faces of the Immunes, Minho, Gally, Brenda; none of it made him feel better, it was practically useless at this point and time. Nothing could stop the guilt that he dealt with, the nightmares that plagued his vision whenever his honey brown eyes closed, making everything black. The overcrowding memories that played on repeat within his head without him even thinking. Thomas wanted it all to stop but it never did, forcing his body to press through it all and continue living.

Days got longer, he grew restless, and everything seemed to blur pass him while his consciousness paid no mind to real life but rather on Newt’s necklace that he clenched in his fist every single waking moment. His fingers dance around the cap, threatening to lift it off and pull out the letter that he has read about ten times now. They tremble for a moment before always retreating and placing it back into his pocket, right next to the serum that Teresa had created from his blood to save Newt. A serum that he’ll never be able to use.

The fire crackles while Brenda, Sonya, and Harriet laugh from something that Minho says. Thomas’s eyes observe over them, standing back and wished he could find the content happiness that they had. The girls calm themselves down as Vince cleared his throat, capturing everyone’s attentions with his words that were spoken so effortlessly. Gally half listened in, sipping on his brew before pausing, gandering towards Thomas and motioned him over. Not wanting to put up any more of an emotional fight, he nodded and headed across the way; the closer he got, the more he picked up on Vince’s words.

"What's he talking about?" Thomas asked, taking a squat on the log next to Gally.

"He's talking about some old myth that's based on thermodynamics. Kinda interesting, but, not really my thing."

Thomas furrowed his brows, arching with a bit of interest as his eyes flickered over to him. “Thermodynamics?” Gally nods, lifting his cup to his lips and parted them for a drink. “Why that? That’s not interesting at all. If anything, meaningless.”

Vince overheard Thomas, pausing in the middle of his sentence to side eye him. “Kid,” he began with his humble tone, “just because you don’t like the idea doesn’t mean that everyone else will. And it makes a good campfire story.”

Again, like the many other nights, Thomas’s hand lingered towards his pocket and the tads of his fingertips ghosted the outline of Newt’s necklace.

“As I was saying, it’s your very own little universe,” he started up again with the folktale, “and it’s known by many names but the most popular one is Sleeping World—now, they call it that because you create it when you’re asleep. All the dreams you have, the nightmares and the emotions that you feel while experiencing them, they are _all_ placed within it.”

His eyes wander around for a moment, taking in the faces of everyone who was in the circle.

“The kicker about this own personal mind universe, is that it’s all relied on energy.” Gally then nudged Thomas’s arm, letting him know that the whole talk of Thermodynamics was about to begin. “Anyone ever heard of the First Law of Thermodynamics?”

“That no energy in the universe is created.” Brenda smiled.

Jorge walks over, adding on. “And none of the energy is destroyed, and every little ounce and bit of it that’s within us will go on to be a part of something else.” He sits down next to Brenda, situating himself. “And every particle that’s part of us now was once part of some other thing who gave us life.”

Minho smiled. “You’re saying that I could have energy within me from a fish?”

Everyone broke into an another clamour, placing hands on bellies since they ached from the exercise and Brenda covered mouth and nose once a pig snort sounded from her.

“Fish, monkey, a whale, you name it.” Vince chuckled, giving a nod. “But every little strand of energy of ourselves that we pour into our dreams and memories, they’re all stored in the Sleeping World and kept there. That’s what connects the dreamers to their universe.”

Thomas’s fingers find their way back to Newt’s necklace within his pocket, his forefinger lingering across the length, back and forth, back and forth.

“But the best part of the myth, the dreamers are actually _able_ to go and visit their Sleeping World. _Relive_ their most powerful memory that resides there and had built it—”

Thomas finally let out a snort, cutting off Vince from speaking, shaking his head in disapproval. “This is the most pathetic thing I’ve heard aside from what WCKD had ever said.”

“And why’s that, son?”

"You’re saying that this fabricated story of a universe that people can make up within their dreams is a product of grief and memory, as well as emotion.” He licks his chapped bottom lip, rocking his head from side to side. “Grief? Grief can't conjure up a place." Thomas intervened.

Vince looked to him, "and fear can't make you afraid." He shot on back, taking a short pause. "Haven't you ever heard the saying, 'if you can dream it, you could it'?" Thomas nodded a bit, remembering somewhere deep within his forgotten memories that he has heard it before. "Who says we can't do the same about a place? Why must we be limited to things, _why_ must we be told that we can’t do anything that our minds can create?”

Thomas rocks back on his log, exhaling heavily through his nose to show that he was already annoyed by this whole thing but it wasn’t his fault, it’s the fact that no such thing like that could happen. Not in a million chances.

His patience wearing thin, Thomas stands, leaving the fire and the group that sat around it. Minho and Gally shouted to him, telling him to come back and join them but Thomas kept on walking to his little cabana hut.

 _A Sleeping World? Ridiculous name,_ he thought to himself, _can’t believe Gally had me go and join that shitshow._

He takes a seat on his cot, slipping off his boots and socks, exhaling deeply and took out the serum and necklace from deep within his pockets, sitting them on his night stand. Thomas made sure that they settled next to the red stained totem of Chuck’s, having all three of his lost ones with him in some form.  

The sea breeze blows, whistling and smell of the salty water hugs around his nose for a solid minute before releasing leaving him be. Silence soon followed. Thomas hated the quiet, it allowed the events of the Last City to seep through the suppression and taunt him. But the memories weren’t the biggest problem, it was the _What Ifs._

_What if I just believed Teresa in the first place about my blood being strange?_

_What if I knew something was going on with Newt earlier?_

_What if I never dumbingly bumped into Janson’s shoulder on purpose when exiting that elevator?_

“Argh!” Thomas shouts, propping his elbows up on his kneecaps, dropping his head down into his hands to massage his temples.

A knock erupts in the silence which startles him, looking up to see Jorge eyeing him and clearing his throat. “You alright, Hermano? Seemed pretty upset out there, but then, you have been for a few days— _weeks_ actually.”

“I just, I just couldn’t hear anything about that-that . . whatever it was.”

Jorge cracks a small smile, motioning his hand forward to ask if he was allowed in and Thomas gave him a nod as he straightened out his back and dropped his arms at his sides.

He stands in front of Thomas, kneeling down as if Thomas were a small child like the few Immunes that resided there in the Safe Haven. Jorge clears his throat. “I get it, Hermano. You’re still hurtin’, it’s alright. It’s how we know that we’re alive.”

Thomas stifles a broken laugh. “Or at least, a part of us is.”

It’s quiet again before Jorge begins again.

“Everyone, once or twice—maybe even more in their lifetime, wants to go back in time to change something that they’ve said, done, or something that has happened They want to go back to the moment where everything was normal, was possible, and there was no hurt, no destruction, no loss. A moment where everything was on track, but it’s never that easy.”

Thomas’s light brown eyes linger over Jorge’s dark ones, the words that he spoke dancing into his ears but not completely making the whole way through since he began thinking about the Last City, WCKD, Teresa, Newt. But Jorge brings him back, continuing on.

“We continue living because what happened can’t be changed, but what we can do is not let our loved ones be forgotten. Hermano, you lost a lot back there and we almost lost you as well . . . I guess what I’m sayin’ is that, I don’t want you to hurt for the wrong reason.” His hand is placed on Thomas’s left shoulder, sturdy, strong yet relaxed and careful. “Those that we’ve lost are still with us, watching over us, and they’ll never leave as long as we keep their memory alive.”

He doesn’t say anything and he believes that he can’t so instead, Thomas nods gingerly.

“Try and get some proper sleep. You need it.” Jorge removes his hand, standing up from his squat and headed out for the night.

Thomas waited a moment before changing his pants, leaving on his long sleeved shirt and lied down in his cot. He covers himself with a thin blanket since it was a cool dusk, turning himself over onto his good side where his gunshot wound wasn’t, pulling his eyelids shut. It takes a while for him to drift into unconsciousness and once he does, he’s flung into pitch darkness.

 

_Fire surrounds him as he’s weak, stumbling and pain throbbing in his right side where Janson’s bullet had sunk in, causing his blood to gush out like a running faucet. The Berg is close but not enough, he’s still having a hard time reaching for it with all of his might, arm feet away from Minho’s._

_Teresa stands behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist, trying to hoist him up as an explosion rocks them. She turns, seeing that another rocket was launched into the one WCKD building that was next to the one that they were currently on top of. A piece of it breaks, falling off in a heap into the city below and right then and there, Teresa knew that the remaining structure of the building would soon fall onto theirs._

_She faces the Berg with determination, grin and bearing it as she ducked her head under Thomas’s right arm, picking him up from his weak knees with her right hand holding onto Thomas’s wrist and left snaked around his side. She just_ had _to get Thomas off that rooftop before the establishment became more wrecked and crashing in on them._

_Minho shouts, reaching out further over the ledge of the cargo door than before. “Thomas! Come on!”_

_Teresa takes a few steps back, measuring out the distance from the edge of the rooftop to the Berg. In a scurry, she steps up, using all the muscle that she had instilled in her and threw him forwards onto the Berg. Vince and Minho grabbing him, pulling him up in by his belt._

_Once he was in, Vince turned to Teresa, holding his hand out for her to jump and Minho did the same, calling for her name. Thomas eyes her as lied down, watching the scene unfold. Even Brenda who stood behind and over Thomas with Gally was calling out to her._

_The splintering crack of the building catch their ears, all them turning to see the building finally caving in and tumbling over onto the rooftop with a boom. Teresa loses her footing, dropping down on all fours. She had known this was coming._

_“Teresa!” Thomas calls, slowly trying to crawl to where the crease of the cargo hold went down into a ramp._

_She turns her head, seeing Thomas in pure shock but once she notices that he’s safe, her lips break into a light smile as she placed her feet under her, standing. Her teary eyes blurred her vision but she can still see the outline of him, her smile still worn as she just watched him._

_From her not moving, not reacting to the calls of the others, Thomas realizes what she’s doing. He readies a saying in his throat but it gets caught, having him choke back on it as his eyes just glued themselves to her frame. His sight then shifts, catching glimpse of the rooftop section behind her crumbling into debris._

_Teresa still continues to smile, her goal had been achieved; the goal of her having found a cure for the Flare._

_At the last moment, she musters up a look that just told Thomas and those who were witnessing this tragic event that she accepted this fate and was ready. And just like that, the platform underneath her is erased and she falls back into the air._

_“NO!” Thomas screams at the top of his lungs, watching her disappear within the rubble, fire, smoke, and embers._

 

Thomas wakes up in a cold sweat, extending his top half up, rubbing his brow and coughing. He exhales and inhales deeply, trying to calm himself down. This wasn’t strange to him. This was like an alarm clock that never shuts off or can’t be changed nor destroyed.

In the corner of his eyes, a silhouette greets him and he doesn’t think much of it. It speaks. _“Bad dream?”_

He nods, licking his bottom lip. “Yeah. Guess you can say that.” A pause to collect his thoughts, the horrible memory still fresh in his mind. “I keep, dreaming about the rooftop.”

_“I know,”_

“It never stops.” He continued, not having heard the remark. “It’s weird, it’s like I’m dreaming, but I’m there all over again but then not. Like a memory . . . I still smell the smoke, feel the pain . . .”

_“Are you okay?”_

Thomas sighs sheepishly. “Yeah . .” Suddenly, realization creeps in and he slowly turns his head, focusing on the silhouette and the voice. With the moonlight beaming through the cracks of the cabana, he can see portions of the face being lit up for him to see who they are. “Wait a minute . . . Teresa, what are you doing here?”

Her left eye held a tear but once he said that, it released and he could see that she was visibly sad from asking that question.

 _“Thomas,”_ she whispered, _“come back here.”_

“‘ _Come back_ ’?” He knitted his eyebrows in confusion.

_“You know.”_

And like a sack of bricks hitting him in his tired state, Thomas did, in fact, know what she was talking about. Teresa was telling him to go back to where she was, where the root of all his plaguing nightmares began.

She was telling him to go back to the Last City.

 


End file.
